Deconstructing the “Truth”

CCF Editor’s Note: Kristen Byrnes is “articulate and intelligent” and has a Web site, much to the “dismay” of climate alarmists. She knows her facts, provides references, and isn’t afraid to go up against Al Gore’s bloated rhetoric. All this, and Kristen’s only 16. Maybe she’ll go on a school lecture tour to neutralize the current invasion of greenies trying to indoctrinate high school students. As Gore has shown, it only takes one voice to make a difference, for better or for worse. And Kristen is definitely making a difference.

Five Months after this essay was published, the British High Court ruled that the movie contained “alarmist” errors and ordered that the movie cannot be shown to British school children without also presenting a competing viewpoint. Many of those errors, as well as many others that were not argued in court, are presented in this essay. While the judge only allowed 11 errors to be argued in court, the expert that defended Al Gore’s movie admitted to 9 errors. The following day, Al Gore was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming.

We all know Al Gore, “the ex-next President of the United States, ” the man who scarcely lost his election to George Bush in 2000. Most people also know that he served as Vice President with Bill Clinton for 8 years. What you might not know about him is that his father also was a politician;he was a U.S. Representative and senator of Tennessee for 32 years. With his father’s busy life, Al Jr. was born in Washington D.C, but also spent a lot of time being raised in Carthage, Tennessee on his family’s farm. He went to college at Harvard and graduated in 1969, soon after he volunteered to go to Vietnam as a news reporter for the U.S Army. After he came back from Vietnam he attended Vanderbilt University Divinity and Law School, but won a seat in Congress before he got a degree. As for his political life, I can imagine that you know the story.

Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth does indeed have some correct facts, but as he even says himself, sometimes you have to over-exaggerate to send the message to people:

Q. There’s a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What’s the right mix?

A. I think the answer to that depends on where your audience’s head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

Al Gore said this, so how are we supposed to know fact from fiction in the global warming debate? The following paragraphs will inform the reader of the false claims, the facts, the selective facts and tactics to scare and advertise.

Throughout the film, he made inferences to his personal and political life, which has nothing to do with global warming. When he wasn’t lecturing about his personal life, he was lecturing about how global warming is man-made.

With these lectures he only considered one point of view, and did not consider the other side of the story (warming being natural), which would have made his movie a little more believable. Not only did he not look at both sides, he always assumed that every harmful phenomenon (extreme weather, rising sea levels and horrible diseases) was correlated or associated with global warming and due to “man made” emissions.

Now, lets start at the beginning of the movie, and see what has and has not been misinterpreted.

Beginning with Gore’s introduction of the film, he sounds calm, eloquent, and gloomy. His voice and tone in the introduction grabs the watchers attention. It also makes him look as if he loves nature, and that he really wants to protect his “only home.” Message: Al cares. I believed that Al cares until I learned that Al Gore’s home did not have any solar panels, windmills, geothermal system or any other “green power.” His utility bills for his home and pool house were $29, 268 last year when he released his movie.

UPDATE: Almost 1 year after this essay was published, Al Gore announced to CBS 60 Minutes that he finally installed solar panels on his house.

Not too long after he presents a picture of “Earth Rise, ” he claims that 18 months after this picture was taken, the modern environmental movement began. Greenpeace did open their club in 1971. But in “1892 – Sierra Club founded on May 28 with 182 charter members. John Muir elected first President. In its first conservation campaign, Club leads effort to defeat a proposed reduction in the boundaries of Yosemite National Park.”

“June 30, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill granting Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias to the State of California, as an inalienable public trust. This was the first time in history that a federal government had set aside scenic lands simply to protect them and to allow for their enjoyment by all people.”